Licensed Electrical Contracting
Panels, meters,
and everything behind the wall
Solar is only as good as the electrical service it connects to. Our licensed journeyman electricians upgrade main panels, replace meter and service equipment, chase down faults, and bring older wiring up to code — whether or not there is a solar array involved.
Scope of Work
Full-service electrical contracting
A journeyman electrician is a fully licensed professional who installs, repairs and maintains electrical systems independently — reading plan sets, diagnosing faults with test instruments, and working to the National Electrical Code and local amendments. That is the level of tradesperson who shows up to your job.
Main panel upgrades
Fuse boxes and 100 amp panels replaced with modern load centers sized for solar, storage, EV charging and electric heat.
Meter & service replacement
Meter sockets, service entrance conductors, masts and weatherheads replaced, with the utility exchange coordinated for you.
Troubleshooting & diagnostics
Breakers that trip, circuits that die, outlets that run warm — traced to the actual fault with meters and thermal inspection.
Rewiring & code compliance
Knob-and-tube, cloth-insulated and aluminium branch circuits replaced. AFCI, GFCI and grounding brought up to current code.
Dedicated circuits
New circuits for EV chargers, heat pumps, ranges, hot tubs, well pumps, workshops and anything else that needs its own breaker.
Lighting, switches & outlets
Fixture installation, recessed and exterior lighting, switch and receptacle replacement, and smart-device wiring done cleanly.
Main Panel Upgrades
The panel is the ceiling on everything else
Most homes in Western Pennsylvania were wired for a very different set of appliances than the ones now plugged into them. A service sized in the 1960s for lighting, a stove and a television is now carrying central air, a dryer, a home office and — increasingly — a car. The main panel is where that mismatch shows up first.
We replace fuse boxes and undersized panels with a modern load center: correctly sized main breaker, a busbar with real spare capacity, proper grounding and bonding, AFCI and GFCI protection where code requires it, and a legible circuit directory so the next person who opens the door knows what they are looking at. Where the service conductors or meter socket are also at their limit, we replace those in the same visit rather than leaving you with a new panel fed by tired wire.
- 100 A and fuse-era services upgraded to 150 A, 200 A or 400 A
- Load calculation performed before the size is quoted
- Busbar headroom verified against the NEC 120% solar backfeed rule
- Permit, inspection and utility disconnect coordinated by us
- Typically one day on site, with power off for four to eight hours
Diagnostics
Signs your service is past its limit
- Breakers trip when two large appliances run together
- Lights dim when the AC or a motor starts up
- Screw-in fuses instead of circuit breakers
- A panel with no spare breaker spaces left
- Warm or discoloured outlets, switches or panel cover
- A burning or fishy smell near the panel
- Buzzing, crackling or scorch marks inside the enclosure
- Federal Pacific, Zinsco or Challenger equipment
- Reliance on extension cords and power strips for daily use
- Two wires doubled up under a single breaker lug
Stop using a panel that is arcing or burning
A burning smell, visible scorching or an audible crackle at the panel is not a scheduling matter. Shut off the main if you can safely reach it, and call us on (412) 333-4444. If there is smoke or heat you can feel through the cover, call 911 first.
Sizing Guide
What each service size actually carries
A rough guide to what a given main service supports in a typical Pittsburgh home. Your actual figure comes from a load calculation against your real appliances, not this table.
| Service | Typically found in | Comfortably supports | Solar + EV ready? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 A | Pre-1960 homes, often with a fuse box | Lighting, a few small appliances | No — replace |
| 100 A | Homes wired 1960s–1980s | Gas heat and hot water, central AC, standard appliances | Rarely — usually needs upgrading |
| 150 A | 1990s builds and earlier upgrades | The above plus an electric range or dryer, modest solar | Sometimes — depends on load |
| 200 A | Modern construction and most upgrades | Whole-home electric, solar, a battery and one EV charger | Yes — the practical baseline |
| 400 A | Large or fully electrified properties | Heat pumps, two EV chargers, workshop, large storage bank | Yes — with room to spare |
Adding solar does not automatically require a larger service — it depends on your panel’s busbar rating and main breaker under the NEC 120% rule. We check that before quoting, and tell you plainly when an upgrade is not needed.
Meter & Service Replacement
Where your property ends and the utility begins
The meter on your wall belongs to the utility, and only they may remove or exchange it. Almost everything holding it there does not: the meter socket, the service entrance conductors, the mast, the weatherhead and the bonding are all the property owner’s equipment, and all of it ages. A cracked socket, a rusted mast or a loose lug is a fire and shock risk long before it becomes an outage.
We replace that owner-side equipment and coordinate the rest. That means filing the service change with the utility, booking the disconnect, doing the work while the power is down, passing the electrical inspection, and getting you reconnected — usually inside a single scheduled window rather than across several trips. If you are adding solar, this is also when a bidirectional or net-metering-capable meter gets fitted so your exported production is actually credited.
- Meter sockets and enclosures replaced or relocated
- Service entrance conductors, mast and weatherhead renewed
- Overhead-to-underground service conversions
- Grounding electrode system brought up to current code
- Net-metering meter swap coordinated for solar customers
Troubleshooting & Repair
Find the fault, not just the symptom
A breaker that trips every few days is telling you something specific, and swapping the breaker is almost never the answer. Our electricians work the problem with instruments — multimeters, clamp meters, insulation testers, circuit tracers and thermal imaging — to isolate whether you are dealing with a genuine overload, a shared neutral, a deteriorated splice in a junction box, a failing appliance, or moisture in an exterior circuit.
You get told what was actually wrong and what it took to fix it, in plain language. Where the root cause is bigger than the call-out — an undersized service, a run of failing branch wiring — we say so, and quote it separately rather than quietly billing hours against a problem that cannot be solved at the outlet.
- Repeated breaker and GFCI tripping traced to cause
- Dead circuits, dimming lights and flickering diagnosed
- Hot outlets, scorched devices and failing connections replaced
- Thermal imaging on panels and heavily loaded circuits
- Pre-purchase and pre-renovation electrical inspections
Rewiring & Code Compliance
Old wiring is the risk you cannot see
Pittsburgh’s housing stock is old, and a lot of it still carries wiring methods that were legal when installed and are dangerous now. Replacing it is disruptive, so we scope it honestly — room by room where that is enough, whole-house only where it genuinely is not.
Knob-and-tube
Ungrounded, brittle with age, and hazardous once buried in insulation. Most insurers now decline or surcharge homes that still have it live.
Aluminium branch circuits
Common in mid-1960s to mid-1970s homes. Connections loosen and overheat over time — remediated with approved connectors or replaced outright.
Ungrounded two-prong outlets
No equipment ground means no protective path for a fault. Corrected properly with a ground run or GFCI protection, not a cheater plug.
AFCI & GFCI protection
Arc-fault and ground-fault protection added where current code requires it — kitchens, baths, laundry, exteriors, garages and bedrooms.
Junction box remediation
Buried, overfilled and uncovered boxes made accessible and compliant — a frequent inspection failure and a common hidden fault source.
Light commercial
Tenant fit-outs, three-phase work, sub-panels, machine circuits and lighting retrofits for small commercial and mixed-use properties.
Who Does the Work
Apprentice, journeyman, master
Electrical licensing is a ladder, and it is worth knowing which rung is standing in your basement. On our jobs, a licensed journeyman leads the work in the field.
Level one
Apprentice
In training, typically over several years of combined classroom hours and supervised field work. An apprentice may not work unsupervised, and never signs off on a job.
Level two — on your job
Journeyman
Fully licensed after completing an apprenticeship and passing a licensing exam. Installs, repairs and maintains systems independently, reads plan sets, diagnoses faults with test instruments, and supervises apprentices on site.
Level three
Master electrician
Holds the licence that permits pulling permits, approving designs and carrying ultimate responsibility for the contractor’s work. Journeyman work is performed under a master’s overall supervision.
How It Works
From call-out to final inspection.
The same sequence whether it is a single dead circuit or a full service replacement.
Assessment
We inspect the panel, service and affected circuits, and run a load calculation where the job needs one.
Written quote
A fixed price and a defined scope before anything is opened up. No hourly drift on defined work.
Permit & scheduling
We pull the permit and book the utility disconnect, so you know your outage window in advance.
Install & inspection
Work completed, circuits labelled, inspection passed, and the service reconnected the same day where possible.
Electrical Questions
Straight answers
Panel at its limit? Let’s look at it.
Tell us what your panel is doing — or what you are trying to add to it — and we will book an assessment. If your existing service is fine, we will tell you that too.